Air Mail or Par Avion?

Although most letters are automatically sent via air mail it is always a good idea to write 'Air Mail' on the envelope. The international term used is usually 'Par Avion'. However since the mail would be originating in the United States I decided to use 'Air Mail' which is the term used by the US Postal Service.

Nevertheless I still wanted to make it clear to non-english speakers that the letters should be sent via air mail. So I chose a design that incorporated an airplane into the stamp and is displayed alongside the text so that even those who do not know how to read english would get the idea. I also liked this design over the others because of the hollowed text. For some reason I thought it made the stamp more 'official' looking.

Each letter was 'Air Mail' stamped twice.

This stamp is commercially available online and I paid about $7 for it.

My mission

Ever since I was a child I have always been fascinated with global happenings. This interest in international affairs has taken me on a journey in life. It started off with a pen pal in Osaka, Japan and more recently with various trips abroad.

In grad school I took courses in international business and during a few lectures I scribbled some sort of a letter to the leaders of a handful of countries and dropped them in the mail. I didn't think twice about them until I started receiving photographs and letters from kings, presidents, and prime ministers from around the world.

Since then I have always wanted to properly pull off a project by which I would correspond with each of the 200+ world leaders. I would compliment them on a fine job well done and request an autographed photo of themselves.

I'm happy to report that I have finally embarked on this long-awaited project. I'm in the process of putting the letters together and will use this space to record each and every step of the process.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy!